


and all the years they fly

by Kyele



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Crossover, Fluff and Angst, Growing Old Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 11:05:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3934444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyele/pseuds/Kyele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“I like noses,” Jean says, kissing Armand’s.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Armand kisses him back. This, too, is a type of evasion.</i>
</p>
<p><i>In the back of the Doctor’s mind, a voice says, </i>time’s up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and all the years they fly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Themadwomanwhoisunfortunatelylackingabox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Themadwomanwhoisunfortunatelylackingabox/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Je Ne Te Promets Pas Le Monde (Mais Je Vais Te Donner L'Univers)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3683388) by [Themadwomanwhoisunfortunatelylackingabox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Themadwomanwhoisunfortunatelylackingabox/pseuds/Themadwomanwhoisunfortunatelylackingabox). 



> Inspired by madwoman's Capaldiover, and written as a thank-you for her willingness to indulge this plotbunny to the extent of not one but _two_ fics :)
> 
> Title from [_the tick tock song_](http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Howling:Song_at_the_end_of_Night_Terrors), which was far too appropriate for this ship to pass up!

The Doctor slams the button on the console and the TARDIS doors slam shut. He’s laughing so hard he’s barely breathing. At least that’s mostly because of the laughter – the laughter, and the running, and the truly precious mental image of the expression the Supreme Chancellor of Glarm had made when Treville had told him, straight-faced, that he couldn’t possibly marry the Chancellor’s daughter – she was too tall for him, for a start, and far too beautiful, and definitely far, far too young.

Treville hadn’t made a single mention of the fact that she’d had four eyes, six arms, and a wart that covered most of her face. Some days the Doctor loves this man, this foolish, silly human, with a passion he’d thought had been burned out of him a long time ago. Some days Treville makes him realize that the passion had been there all along, just waiting to be brought out from the place he’d buried it long back when he’d had a different name.

Sometimes Treville reminds him so much of the boy he’d once been that he can barely stand it. Sometimes, like today, the memories are joyful. Those are the days the Doctor likes best.

“Well that was hardly the most successful diplomatic mission I’ve ever been on,” the Doctor says finally, still chortling. “Honestly, Jean, it’s like you’ve learned nothing.”

“Putting me in a magical spaceship hasn’t changed who I am,” Jean says, amused. “I was terrible at politics in France and I’m terrible at them here.”

The Doctor is forced to admit the justice of this. “Still, it was good of you to turn her down so gently,” he says. “Though I don’t know what possessed you to say she was too young for you. She’s only – ”

“ – a quarter my age.”

“Surely not.” The Doctor frowns. “She’s over fifty.”

“I know,” Jean says gently.

“Never mind.” The Doctor leaps to his feet. “Let’s go somewhere else. Where do you want to go? We can check out Barcelona. The planet, not the country, although we can go to the country, too, I never _did_ get to annex Spain for Louis – ”

Treville interrupts him with a single word: “Armand.”

The Doctor grinds to a halt. He doesn’t scold Treville for using his old name, or ask that he be referred to by the name he’d chosen so many centuries ago. Sometimes, when it’s like this, he likes being called _Armand_. Armand-Jean du Plessis de Richelieu had done many horrible things by the standards of his time and place. But in comparison with the Doctor he’d been a babe in the woods. The Doctor likes that someone still sees him that way.

“What?” the Doctor asks finally, when it becomes clear Treville isn’t going to continue.

Treville smiles, and it’s fond, and amused, but the edge of sadness under it is growing harder to bear. “I don’t think I’m going to do those things.”

“Why not?” the Doctor turns away, flipping switches and buttons on the TARDIS console just to have something to do.

“Look at me.”

“You look fine,” the Doctor dismisses.

Jean’s hands steal around and cover Armand’s, stilling them. “Look, Doctor.”

The shock of being called _Doctor_ has him spinning. And maybe because of it, maybe in spite of it, maybe just because it’s time, he looks at Treville – really _looks_ – for the first time in decades.

“I’m old,” Jean says gently. “All of those treatments you keep buying me will only push out the inevitable so long. I don’t have much time left. And while I’ve loved our adventures, I’d rather spend the time I have left with you, than go running off to Barcelona.”

“They’ve got dogs with no noses there,” the Doctor says helplessly. Evade, evade, always evade and then maybe the bad truth will go away –

“I like noses,” Jean says, kissing Armand’s.

Armand kisses him back. This, too, is a type of evasion.

In the back of the Doctor’s mind, a voice says, _time’s up._


End file.
